Author | Message |
Moderator | 30 years for Belgian woman in parachute death By Robert Wielaard, The Associated Press BRUSSELS - A jealous schoolteacher who doctored the parachute of a love rival causing her to plunge to her death was sentenced to 30 years in prison Thursday.
In sentencing Els Clottemans, 26, the judge said the only mitigating circumstance in the 2006 skydive murder was her feeble psychological condition. Clottemans attempted suicide in 2008.
She was sentenced a day after she was found guilty of murdering Els Van Doren by sabotaging her parachute so neither it nor a safety chute would open during a Nov. 18, 2006, jump.
A jury at a courthouse in the East Belgian town of Tongeren agreed with the prosecution that jealousy motivated Clottemans.
She and Van Doren were members of the same parachute club. The killer and her victim were intimately involved with the same a man, a Dutch skydiver, whom Clottemans wanted for herself.
The jury said Clottemans acted with premeditation and that, as an accomplished jumper, she knew very well how to disable a parachute. Evidence at the trial showed she sent anonymous letters about Van Doren's love life to mutual friends and that she was psychologically unstable. Clottemans faced a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Her trial opened Sept. 24 with the accused sitting nervously near the mud-caked parachute bag and helmet that Van Doren wore on the day she died.
The jury saw video footage from a camera mounted on her helmet, that Van Doren had shot during what would be her last jump.
She and Clottemans were among the last four jumpers to leave the Cessna plane.
The video showed how the victim looked up, yanking at her gear, hoping to see an open canopy above her.
Neither parachute opened and she crashed into a garden in the East Belgian town of Opglabbeek and died instantly.
Throughout her trial, Clottemans maintained her innocence.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/...te_killing
Ohh purple joy oh purple bliss oh purple rapture! REAL MUSIC by REAL MUSICIANS - Prince "I kind of wish there was a reason for Prince to make the site crash more" ~~ Ben | |
- E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
she's sentenced to life without any evidence whatsoever | |
- E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
*shudder* that is just so awful. I've always thought one of the worst ways to die would be like that. Can you imagine the sheer fear of yanking that string & the parachute doesn't come out? & all you can do is wait for the terrifying, drawn out, long long long death that's surely waiting for you on the ground. I will NEVER go sky diving! | |
- E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
Drawn out? More like a few short seconds. | |
- E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
Please...in America...you don't even need a body to get a conviction and sentence [Edited 10/21/10 11:47am] | |
- E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
so ? are you saying that's a good thing ? | |
- E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
no...just saying | |
- E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
IF she's guilty then thank god they are locking her sick ass up. If this is all circumstantial then.... 2010: Healing the Wounds of the Past.... http://prince.org/msg/8/325740 | |
- E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |